The cost of raising the minimum wageOne policy initiative President Barack Obama highlighted in his State of the Union is to increase the federal minimum wage. A fellow Democrat, our own Sen. Mark Pryor, is not echoing Obama’s proposal but rather criticizing the size of the Obama initiative while supporting a smaller state increase. Meanwhile, a new study confirms what economists have said for years — an increase will cost American jobs. Obama is pushing for an almost 40 percent...

Note to task force on FOIA: Just follow the lawA task force has been appointed by the chancellor of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, and members of the Arkansas news media have been invited to meet with the group Friday. I wasn’t one of the 207 people who got an invitation to the meeting, which isn’t surprising since I’m just a retired editor who continues to write a column. I had a conflict anyway. UA Chancellor G. David Gearhart explained to an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette report...

Letter to the editor (Feb. 26, 2014)Brick crosswalks need to be replaced To our mayor, city engineer, city council and citizens. As a somewhat experienced construction man, only 55 years experience in many countries, I have a comment concerning the crosswalks on Main Street downtown Russellville. It was, as you now know, a bad decision to put the brick crosswalks in to begin with — called hindsite. I agree with our city engineer to replace these crosswalks with 18-inch of re-enf...

Thanks for the memoriesOn Oct. 15, Scott Smith, then 39, father of three and owner of SKB Insurance, did not know his name or the name of the stranger in the hospital room who seemed important. That stranger was his wife, Kim, of 13 years. Three days earlier, the two were conversing as they prepared for dinner when he collapsed and suffered a seizure-like attack. When he began to regain consciousness two hospitals later, his mind was like a computer hard drive that ...

Medicaid impasse threatens budgetLITTLE ROCK — It’s a popular refrain for Democrats and Republicans alike in Arkansas, especially as they gear up for campaign season: We’re not Washington. We’re different. They may need to rethink that line. Less than a year after Arkansas adopted a first-in-the-nation plan to provide subsidized health coverage to the poor using Medicaid funds, the program’s future remains in limbo after a string of failed votes in the state House. It’s an im...

Lessons with live explosives: It finally happenedRule No. 1 in the instructor’s manual (if there actually is one) of aspiring suicide bombers: Lessons with live explosives are not encouraged. A commander at a secluded terrorist training camp north of Baghdad unwittingly used a belt packed with explosives while conducting a demonstration last week for a group of militants. He killed himself and 21 other members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, army and police officers told Reuters. Thi...

The Onion is for jokesI can’t count the number of times I’ve seen posts on Facebook where people confuse The Onion for a legitimate news source. For a society that should know full-well not to believe everything you read on the Internet or see on television, we seem to do an awful lot of just that. I suppose I can forgive the confusion on the average person’s timeline, but from an actual newspaper? Oh, how I wish I was kidding. In 2009 two Bangladeshi newspapers re...

Eating disorder gives false sense of power, controlMy granddaughter, Olivia Gardner, who is a junior at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., was first diagnosed in 2005 with an eating disorder. A graduate of Mount St. Mary Academy in Little Rock, she wrote an essay about her recovery two years ago and I included it in this column. Here is an update from her. “I noticed I was different when I was about 8 years old. I was smaller than my classmates, and I got a lot of attention for it. My da...

I'm not watching the OlympicsThis is not exactly a newsflash in my house, where, before he left for college, my son had to teach me how to turn on the TV. The thing is, I really don't want to watch the Olympics, even though I spent many of my happier childhood hours watching figure skating on the black-and-white. It's not the athletes' fault. They are doing their best, given everything. But this Olympics, for all the wrong but obvious reasons, seems to be more about the p...

High-tech semper fi across the countryIf you have ever been caught speeding by a police radar unit, you will love this story a friend sent to me a while back. I am not sure whether or not it’s true, but I suspect that it is. It has been many a moon since I have had a speeding ticket, and the cost of the tickets has increased exponentially. The image I have in my mind for getting a ticket of any kind is taking a hundred-dollar bill and setting it on fire, plus an increase in my aut...

Just say no, or try to reformBetween when I wrote this and when you read it, the Legislature may have come to a conclusion on the private option. It doesn’t look that way, but lots can change in a day. Regardless, the debate will continue. Here’s the background. The private option uses Obamacare-targeted dollars intended to enroll people in Medicaid and instead subsidizes the cost of private insurance through the Affordable Care Act’s health care exchanges. It serves Arka...

Hillary Clinton is too old for what?The esteemed political writer Charlie Cook recently produced a column titled "Is Hillary Clinton Too Old to Run?" Despite couching his thoughts with a mention that if Clinton were to run, she would be the same age as Ronald Reagan when he was first elected president, 69, he did venture over the sexism line. The giveaway came toward the end when Cook noted that Clinton could be challenged for the nomination by Vice President Joe Biden, without ...

How about Cruz control?Freshman Senator Ted Cruz says many things that need to be said and says them well. Moreover, some of these things are what many, if not most, Americans believe wholeheartedly. Yet we need to remember that the same was true of another freshman Senator, just a relatively few years ago, who parlayed his ability to say things that resonated with the voters into two terms in the White House. Who would disagree that if you want your doctor, you sho...

Mike Ross’ wishful tax cut proposalA tax cut plan by Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mike Ross would be one of the largest middle class tax cuts in Arkansas history, but the likelihood of much of it actually taking effect appears doubtful, at best. The proposal by Ross would expand the size of income tax brackets to lower state income taxes paid by many Arkansans. Brackets would be increased as if inflationary adjustments had been in place since 1971. The relief primarily wo...

Griffin weapon for GOP, target for DemsLITTLE ROCK — By seeking the lieutenant governor’s office, U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin represents a formidable weapon for fellow Republicans in their quest to take over the state’s top elected spots in November. But the two-term congressman also represents an easy target for Democrats as they try to prevent that sweep. With his announcement that he’ll seek the state’s No. 2 office, Griffin upended a race that had been lifeless and suspense-free comp...

County government needs refinementState Rep. Butch Wilkins, D-Jonesboro, reminded his 500-plus Facebook friends over the weekend about the absurdity of Arkansas law’s requirement that county officials stand for election every two years. Because Wilkins is term-limited, he won’t be able to do anything about it, but someone should. Wilkins was referring specifically to Craighead Sheriff Marty Boyd’s announcement for re-election, barely 13 months after taking office. He’s not the...

There’s an app for stinky, tooI do not have children, which probably comes as no surprise to longtime readers of my columns. But I got something on my email the other day I had to think about. “Imagine this: You’re sitting in your living room watching the season premiere of ‘Game of Thrones’ when suddenly you get a text message from your 2-month-old daughter saying her diaper needs to be changed. “No, she’s not a super-smart infant who learned how to text at birth — but he...

The DOOM-boom of 1995In late 1995, the excessively violent video game with satanic undertones “DOOM” was estimated to be installed on more computers worldwide than Microsoft’s operating system Windows 95. Microsoft founder Bill Gates responded with a million-dollar advertising campaign to convince people of the latter, which led eventually to a Windows 95 port to promote the operating system as a gaming platform. Some of you young folks may not realize that back i...

Letter to the editor (Feb. 16, 2014)U.S. Sen. Pryor votes against gun owners Sen. Pryor recently voted against an Amendment to allow concealed weapons carry in post offices. Sen. Pryor has often professed to support the Second Amendment, but his vote in the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee would appear to cast doubt on his support. It is illegal to carry a concealed weapon into a post office, or even to have one in your car if you enter a post office parking lot. Sen. Rand ...

No-alcohol tailgate partiesHave you ever made a suggestion you felt would be about as welcome as a skunk at a family picnic? Well, that is my chosen task today, and because I feel it is so important to the lives and well-being of many people, I am willing to endure the slings and arrows that will surely come my way. For all the people across our nation who are involved in planning and carrying out “tailgate” parties, I am going to suggest they not include alcohol in the...